


comic book death

by Domoz



Category: Critical Hit (Podcast)
Genre: AU, Emetophobia, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:03:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domoz/pseuds/Domoz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He asks, “Why?”</p><p>Smith closes his eyes, slumps all his weight onto the wall.</p><p>“I was the one who killed Randus.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Something has always been kind of _off_ for Smith when he shifts. He's usually in control enough to decide when it happens, if it happens at all.

The issue is more how it works afterwords.

Its like he's not the one in control of his own body. Oh it takes _suggestions,_ sure, but when he shifts its like telling someone else to do something, and only being able to hope they do what you ask.

Normally it's not a problem, normally he defends himself _better_ like that, the instincts of the thing inside him are better than his own and the regeneration is a nice bonus. But, sometimes, the thing in control doesn't listen at all, lets loose a spell that’s too destructive, that hits all the wrong people.

But,on the whole the shifting is more helpful than harmful. At least that's what he's been telling himself for this long.

But when they go to the moon, something changes. It's after Randus and Orem build a makeshift fuse out of the remains of the old one and some strange parts Coil donated from his insides and the things they were able to loot from the closest tower.

Randus had asked Smith to climb in, first, and he had flat out refused. And he was glad he did, too, because when Randus threw the switch the makeshift fuse explodes with light that dazzles the lot of them and it only lasts a few seconds before the whole thing explodes in shrapnel.

Smith grimaces, “Remind me again why you wanted me to climb in there?”

Randus gives him a nervous chuckle in response.

But it looks like it was enough. Their world looks smaller in the sky.

They succeeded. They won.

  


After that it's a long time holding out against the lunar monsters until Thony shows up. It's when he's fighting those waves off that Smith feels the difference. There's a pressure in his chest that wants to be let out- and when the fight gets bad, he does.

And this time whatever it is that's in him hardly listens to him at all, tears through the monsters, and Torq, again, like they're nothing and doesn't let him have control again until he's lying on the deck of The Proud Baroness panting for breath.

Whatever gave him this power feels _angry_ now, pushing on his chest to get out. It wasn't like that before. But it's hard to pinpoint what's changed, besides.

_So, note to self. Don't shift anymore._

As if it were that easy. Angry lunar beasts have been pursuing the Proud Baroness since they took off and they have to go clear them out with alarming frequency. He tries, really tries, not to let it out, but he's so used to it now that sometimes he shifts without thinking. And the thing just seems to get more and more angry as he denies it. For now, at least, the lunar monsters are the only ones to get hurt but it's bad enough that _Orem_ stops him and ask him if he's feeling alright.

Smith says, “Never been better”

Though it's only true in the physical sense. He had stopped worrying about what was happening to him, for a while there, but this brings it on fresh.

No need to panic, though. The only problem is when he shifts, and he's probably not due to make anything else that's magic for a while. Once they're off the moon there won't really be a need for it and he can figure it out from there.

-

So it goes wrong.

The airship is struggling to stay in the air and the four of them are trying to get some rest before another inevitable flock of lunar monsters shows up.

Randus stumbles into the cargo hold where the rest of them are; he's shaking and panicked and looking like he didn't get any sleep at all. He's stumbling over his own words so badly that he's incoherent, it takes Smith putting a hand on his shoulders and Orem telling him to breath to get him wound down enough to explain.

Randus says, “I- I had another encounter with a lunar god”

They all frown. Orem asks, “The Thing Who Shatters the Sky?”

Randus shakes his head rapidly. “No,”, he says, “It- it was a different one. It said it was The Melody Alkaline. I don't know what it wanted”

Smith can feel Randus shiver as he says the name, feel him sag, afterwords.

He doesn't know the name, but just hearing it sends makes his heart fall and his blood run cold.

It's not the name itself, but the reaction it causes- the pressure in his chest is suffocating. Whatever it is that's inside of him doesn't like that at _all._

Then they hear Thony yelling that there's more monsters on their tail and they all rush out before much of anything can be said.

He doesn't shift. _He doesn't_ . He's so careful _not_ to that he's more focused on that than the fight and it may well have been the thing that costs the ship it's propeller.

  


Thony climbs out of the pilot's room once the ship is done crashing to the ground.

He says, “Well, the good news is that we crushed most of the monsters on landing!”

He waits for everyone to right themselves before continuing, “The bad news is, the ship is pretty much wrecked! It's gonna take a while to get it working again”

Orem chews his lip and asks, “How long?”

“A few days? I have everything we should need to repair that propeller on board but that tear in the hull is another matter”

Randus is nodding along, still looking tired but his fright apparently forgotten. He's saying, “Well, we only need to get it running well enough to get us back to the Exilarchy so-”

And walks off with Thony back to the cargo hold talking in that language engineers have that something none of the rest of them understand.

Smith stands in a daze until Torq walks up behind him and slaps his back asking, “Everything alright there?”

It's not. It's not. He needs this thing out of him. He feels like he's straining every muscle just to hold it back.

But what can Torq do? Smith nods _yes_ at him and Torq says, “If you say so” And wanders off.

-

Smith spends the next days pacing the deck of the ship, trying to work off the nervous energy. He tells the others that he's looking out for lunar monsters, but after they drove off the first few monkey-lizards it's been surprisingly quiet.

Well, that's the moon for you.

He doesn't sleep well.

He starts awake when he hears Randus walking down the hall, Thony yelling, “Get some rest, we should be good to take off in an hour or so!”

Smith rolls to his feet and stumbles after Randus. Randus who talked to The Melody Alkaline. Randus who is the only person he knows who would have a clue on how to help him.

His voice sounds ragged, “Wait”

Randus turns and it takes a moment for surprise to register on his face- he hasn't gotten much sleep either.

“Smith! You look- are you feeling ok?”

He takes as deep a breath as he can muster, not much, right now.

“No”

It takes another moment for Randus to process it, and then he's pulling Smith into his room and asking where it hurts and telling him to sit down.

Smith wants to tell him, no it's not like that, he's not growing anything. That this is far worse.

But he _can't_ . He's trying desperately to get any words out at all but his throat is too tight and he can't _breath_ because of the force on his chest and it becomes all too clear that whatever he's got inside of him isn't going to let him talk at all.

He manages a whimper, and Randus puts his hand on Smith's chest and tells him to breath, slowly, to try and stay calm and tell him what's happening so he can help.

The thing wants _out._

In the end, there's only so much one man can do against a lunar god.

  


All it takes is one movement. There's not even any blood.

All he had to do was move Randus's head just a little bit farther back than it was supposed to go.

Randus gasps and there's the snap of a bone breaking and by the time Randus has crumpled to the floor Smith is already back in control of himself.

In an instant he's knelt down by Randus, hands shaking.

He checks for a pulse.

It's a useless gesture. He knows what he just did.

He says, “No. No, no no _no no”_

And then stops with the realization that the pressure is gone. That he can speak again. The thing got what it wanted and went back to whatever it was doing before. He has a guess as to why but his head hurts too much to figure out the details. And that's not what he's focused on right now, anyways.

  


Thony. Thony knows about medial stuff too, right? So there's a chance...

He all but sprints down the hallways to find him- when he does he doesn't even care to look at what he's doing. He's crying now, “Thony. Randus- Randus is-!”

And then chokes and ends up gesturing helplessly back the way he came. But Thony seems to understand; he nods and picks up a bag of what are hopefully medical supplies and hustles down towards Randus's room.

He considers following, for a moment, then decides against it. If Thony is successful he probably _shouldn't_ be there.

So he listlessly wanders back up to the top deck and runs into the two last people he wanted so see.

Torq notices him first and jabs Orem with his elbow and says too loudly, “What wrong?”

He whines first, then swallows hard and says, “Randus”

They look at each him confused.

“He's... He's hurt”

It's all he can mange. They try and ask more but Smith just shakes his head and tries not to sob and they end up running to Randus's room, too, leaving him behind.

Which is fine. It's fine. As soon as they're gone Smith drags himself over to the side of the ship and pukes until nothing comes up anymore.

  


He sits there for a long time, on his knees, shoved in the corner between the ship and the railing. His thoughts feel like they're going a thousand miles an hour but whenever he tries to grab onto one it slips away from him.

He feels dizzy, and guilty and disgusting and tired and he doesn't want to move from that spot until he dies.

But ah- there's a thought he can grab onto. And he has to move for that one.

  


Smith stands up and slowly, leaning heavily on the wall, makes his way back towards Randus's room.

  


He hears them before they see him, Orem is saying, “-some lunar monster. If Smith saw him first then he probably knows the most about what happened...”

Thony nods along. He and Orem look somber. Torq looks mad.

He waits until they see him and fall silent.

Thony says, “Err. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Randus is-”

“I know”

None of them want to look him in the eye. That's just as well.

Smith takes a deep breath.

“You should probably tie me up”

They're confused. And then slowly it dawns on them. Orem gets it first, his face twists up in horror. He doesn't want to believe it.

He asks, “Why?”

Smith closes his eyes, slumps all his weight onto the wall.

“I was the one who killed Randus.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

There's no ceremony to it. Thony brings them a sturdy rope, Torq ties Smith up by the wrists, and they leave him curled up and shaking on the bed in his room.

They had been about to question him when they had heard a screeching and Orem had said, “We'll discuss this when we get to the Exilarchy. Just... stay there”

And stay there he does. The moment replays over and over in his head.

Randus didn't even get a chance to fight back. He was trying to _help_ and he just-

Well there's nothing left to throw up at least.

Smith tries to convince himself at first that maybe he's not the one to blame here, that it was this thing that’s inside of him that did it. He wasn't one in control at the time.

But. No. He was the one who got overconfident with it, who let that thing inside him have what it wanted. For a while he had stopped even  _trying_ to suppress it. He had thought the powers were  _good_ and then when it got bad he hadn't been able to do a thing about. He had failed to control it.

He had killed Randus.

That's the realization that starts him sobbing.

He cries for a long time, until his head hurts and his breath wont stop hitching.

He thinks they're in the air now, though he doesn't know for how long. No one has come to see him and the light on the moon doesn't really change with the passing of the hours.

He has no idea what to do now. He still needs this thing out of him but it's not as though it would change anything. Not now.

He wonders what the others will want to do with him. Maybe they'll leave him to Exilarchy law, or maybe Torq will try to sentence him as a constable of Moonhold.

He thinks _maybe they had a death sentence for murder_ and he's not as horrified by the thought as he thinks he should be.

-

He spends a long time tied up in there. His shoulders start to ache and he drifts in and out of sleep.

It's the same dream, the same scene, every time. Sometimes there are more bodies- Orem's , Torq's, Thony's. Even his family, sometimes.

So when Orem finally goes to get him he finds Smith with bags under his eyes and a face red from crying. His face is set and his voice is flat as he says, “We're back. So come on.”

Smith struggles to stand- between the aching of his shoulders and in his head he stumbles into the wall as soon as he's on his feet.

Orem waits for Smith's head to stop spinning and then follows him down the hall back to the cargo hold.

Torq is waiting there and he looks no less sore than he did when Smith had told him the first time.

They look tired, too, like they've been fighting and haven't gotten a break.

He swallows hard when Orem steps away from him to stand by Torq, when he deadpans, “Alright. Smith. Tell us what happened in there.”

He can't bring himself to look either of them in the eyes. Haltingly, he starts to explain.

“I... It was the other night. When Randus came in all freaked out about that other lunar god. I don't know what it was but something about the... the _idea_ I guess made me mad. Well not _me._ I mean, I've never really been in control when I get all wolfy...”

Orem makes a sound like _hm_ and Smith has to stop a clear is throat. This is hard. There's nothing actually _stopping_ him from speaking this time, and it needs to be said, but Smith would rather them pass their judgment now and leave him to rot.

“What I mean is, whatever it is in me that lets me do all this magic stuff got mad. So I went to Randus to see if he could help and I...”

From behind him comes Thony's voice, “Snapped his neck like a toothpick.”

Just hearing it said makes Smith flinch. Orem very nearly does the same.

But he said it without malice. Thony walks up behind Smith and thumps him on the back with his free hand.

“I don't think you should be so hard on yourself, kid” he says, “I mean don't get me wrong, it's _really bad_ but it's not like you _wanted_ to, eh?”

Then he walks off, seemingly carefree, drops his armload of tools by the tear in the hull, and gets to work on it. Smith can only nod.

Orem watches Thony as he quietly states, “We didn't even know you had something _in_ you. Certainly not something that you couldn't control”

The silence stretches on for a long time before Smith works himself up to say, “I- I thought I could”

Torq grunts and shakes his head, the first noise he's made this whole time. A moment after Orem sighs, says, “Well, we're going to have a funeral for Randus. If you want to come.”

Smith nods again. It's a small thing to be glad about, but at least they're allowing him this.

-

The funeral is small. Almost everyone in the Exilarchy is working to defend it or else get it prepared to go back to the material plane.

Orem, Torq and Smith are really the only ones there. Coil and Thony sort of _visit_ , and Arquebus sends his condolences but there's not really a ceremony. None of them have the heart to say anything and when they activate the coil he's under and turn him to ash Smith falls to his knees.

He doesn't cry again but he stays there for a long time. His head hurts so badly that the only thought he can mange to work out is _I'm sorry._

Eventually Orem finds him and says, “The cogs say that we're going to be leaving soon. Come on.”

He falls back to his knees twice and Orem eventually has to help him stand up and walk over to the nearby pavilion.

As they walk over Orem asks, “Have you eaten at all. Since-?”

He sounds frustrated.

Smith shakes his head. He's not sure he'd be able to hold it down, anyways.

“Then,” says Orem, “First thing when we get back you need to eat, and then we're heading out”

Smith nods.

-

He's in poor enough health that Smith winds up lying on his back with stars in front of his eyes at the end of the return trip. It takes him a moment longer than the others to stand back up.

Not too much longer Orem is there with a bag of rations. He asks, “Are you in danger of loosing control, do you think?”

Smith shakes his head. He hasn't been in danger of that again since it happened. But still, when Orem moves to untie the rope he says, “Wait”

“What?”

“It's just, if it gets mad again I- I'd rather stay tied up”

Orem sighs.

“If you want. But I'll tie them in front of you. This is a bit ridiculous.”

After a moment his hands are free and Smith takes the time to stretch the ache out of his shoulders, and then very carefully take the food from Orem.

It's granola and Exilarchy goop. He can't stomach much of it but he tries. Orem gives him a look as if to say _that's all?_ And Smith bows his head and hands the food back. _That's all._

Orem's isn't as good at tying knots as Torq. Smith wants to ask him to retie it but when they meet at the gates Torq still looks unhappy and he doesn't want to bring it up. The ropes _are_ tight, he hopes it's enough.

-

He only asks where they're going once they've been walking for an hour. Orem says, “The Black Oak Woods”

He doesn't ask why.

-

Two hours out and it's really starting to occur to Smith that eating hasn't made him feel any better. He wants to chalk it all up to guilt and lack of sleep but he's really worried about keeping that food down.

-

Two and a half hours out he has to stop and throw up and he's pretty sure he has a fever on top of everything else. Orem calls for them to rest and tells Smith to eat again. He tries but he chokes down even less than before. Orem gives him a long look and then says, “Get some rest”

Smith is more than happy to curl up on the ground and try. He's exhausted enough that he falls asleep near immediately, and whatever dreams he has aren't bad enough to wake him up for a few hours, at least.

-

He's still walking listlessly the next day. He's almost certain he has a fever, his stomach is actually _hurting_ now and he's not sure how much of it he can blame on stress.

It feels like that pressure that was in his chest is pushing at him everywhere else. It doesn't feel like it wants to break out- it feels like it's pushing _in_ and trying to liquify his insides.

Something else besides the obvious haunts him now, too.

Back in Tuberville, there was that woman, Missy. She had warned him that whatever was happening to him wasn't so good for his body.

He had brushed her off at the time. Now he thinks she was right.

And there was the other thing she said, too.

  
  


He manages to make it the whole day without falling or puking and when they stop to camp he clears his throat so they're both looking at him.

He says, “There's something else I need to tell you”

Torq grunts at him.

He says, “Its my name. My real name. It's James. Tsarkol.”

It feels wrong to say, somehow. Like it's not his name anymore. Like he's done something to lose the right to be called by it.

Orem, who's been mostly expressionless since they'd left the Exilarchy, quirks and eyebrow.

“Why are you telling us this now?”

Smith shrugs.

“I think it might help”

His tone isn't very convincing- he can't see _how_ it will help but she was smart, she seemed to know what she was talking about. He can hope.

Orem says, “Alright then...James”

It feels wrong. Maybe that's the point.

  
  


After a moment Orem goes back to his book and Torq turns away to keep watch.

He's reading the book, the one they found _in_ the Black Oak Woods, cover to cover.

  
  


Smith watches him read for a while. And then, sheepishly, asks, “Why _are_ we going back to the Black Oak Woods, exactly?”

Orem doesn't even look up from his book.

“We're going to search that outpost we found before more thoroughly, to see if we can't find the location of any other camps”

Fair enough, but...

“Why?”

Orem looks up, now. He almost sounds exasperated, “Well, we can't have them activate the towers again, right? And with any luck we'll be able to figure out how to help _you_.”

He knows there's shock written all over his face. After all he's done and Orem can still say the word _help_ about _him._ He starts to stutter, “No, but-”

Someone else cuts him off first.

“The way I see it,” it's the first words Torq has said to him since it happened, “the thing what needs cuttin' in half is inside of you. And we can't cut that up without cuttin' you up. So mostly we're lookin' for a way to get that thingama out of ya so we can cut that in half without cuttin' you in half.”

Smith's heart does a strange sick flutter at the words. Even after all this they're willing to help him. To get that thing _out._

Orem sets his jaw, “I'm not going to lose anyone else.”

-

Smith cries that night, too. But, for once, it's not all grief. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

When they get to the compound Smith is nearly unconscious on his feet. The walk is not been kind on his head or his stomach and he can't stop shivering which pretty much confirms his whole fever theory . He manages, at least, to keep his breakfast down, so there is _some_ improvement.

Orem steps into the building first, sword drawn and looking for enemies. Torq follows, axe in hand. They look back at Smith who's eyes only drop to the rope around his wrists for a moment.

Orem sounds frustrated, “Just...just keep close, alright?”

But as they go room to room there's nothing to threaten them at all. In fact the whole place has been stripped clean. Any sign that this place housed any void cultists has been scrubbed away. Even the furniture is gone.

Orem sighs, says, “I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. I suppose we'll have to ask the _elves_ what they found here”

Trust Orem to look forward to fighting the void over talking to an elf.

-

It doesn't take long to find someone, though. Once Orem remembers to take out the band the Grey Velt Band gave him it's only a mere minutes before they hear a voice say, “Hail”

An elf steps out from behind a tree, hand out towards Torq hoping to keep his axe on his back.

Orem bows his head and says, “We seek to speak with Etherill.”

The elf nods and gestures for them to follow, saying, “I thought I recognized you”

The tree city is much the same, maybe a bit more ragged, maybe with fewer elves, but Etherill is still there in the middle of it all. He greets them, says, “It's nice to see you all again, now that the fighting is done.”

And Orem replies, “I'm not so certain about that. We're actually here to seek more information on the Void. Anything you might have learned from cleaning out that compound, perhaps?”

Etherill suddenly seems to grow much more tense. He says, “Are the cultists still causing problems, then?”

Orem has to take a step back , “Not as such, no. But the towers  _do_ remain active and we intend to make certain that this doesn't happen again”

It's not even a lie, and Etherill relaxes, if only a little, “I'm sorry to say that that book you took with you was the only real information any of us got from the place. The only other thing that might interest you is the location of a few other similar camps- although I imagine they've mostly been abandoned by now.”

Orem shakes his head, “We'd still like to check them, if it's all the same to you.”

“Very well. I'll have the locations written down- in the meantime you're welcome to stay as long as you'd like”

And he turns to go. He no mention that they're missing a member, or that one of them is tied up, he just turns his head and adds, “And our healers would be happy to help you, should you need it”

-

The healer sighs, “I can help with the symptoms, but can do nothing for the cause.”

He pauses for a moment.

“Or rather, I can't even determine what the cause _is_. Unless you've been eating nightshade, and you insist that you haven't.”

Smith stays quiet as the healer gathers herbs in bags- this one to chew on when he's nauseous, this one to boil and drink every day to try and bring down his fever. There's a lot of them and Smith is already starting to forget which is which.

The healer hasn't said anything about his tied hands, either, but he can feel his gaze on the ropes.

“I'll just give these to your friends than, shall I?”

Smith just nods. The medicine _is_ starting to make him feel a little better, but the healer had pretty much said it. If they can't treat the cause, it's only going to get worse.

The two of them go out to where Torq and Orem are waiting- Orem is telling Torq something about how the camps are arranged, about going north, but the healer is talking over him, “You don't have to go right now, you know. Rest would probably help you more than anything else-”

Smith shakes his head, “No, but thank you”

What's going to help him is getting this thing  _out_ . The healer rolls his eyes as he goes back to his house. Orem jerks his head in the direction they'll be going, “Come on, we have a lot of ground to cover”

-

They move faster now that Smith is more able to keep up. He holds down his food better and even though his fever doesn't seem to be getting any better he doesn't let him slow him down.

The first camp they find is just that- the remains of a fire pit and a stake or two in the ground where a tent must have been. Orem says, “I think this one was only meant to be temporary anyways, let's go ahead and move on” as he scuffs out a suspiciously lunar mark in the dirt.

They don't have much luck at the second place either, it's a run-down looking house. There are a few lizard-monkeys inside, but aside from a few more books- that are hardly readable from what _looks_ like water damage but _smells_ like something worse- they don't find anything else that helps. They rest there for the night and move on.

The next place  _does_ have cultists waiting for them- two- and though between Orem and Torq they take them down rather easily. One of them does manage to get a pretty nasty cut in on Smith's arm.

Orem says, “This isn't going to work. We need you able to fight.”

Smith doesn't say anything. He knows it too.

He hasn't felt that pressure, since, but he's wary. All it takes is a moment.

“It's your choice, I suppose. If you think you're more dangerous than these cultists”

Smith slumps his shoulders, “Just... keep the rope on hand.”

Orem unties him and Smith carefully stretches the stiffness out.

He doesn't like this- it makes him nervous, and even though no pressure came when the ropes came off like he expected it feels like they trust him more than he trusts himself.

And he says so, quietly, “I don't see why you're willing to trust -”

Orem stops him right there with a shake of his head, “It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter of survival. I haven't decided if I'm going to trust you or forgive you or anything like that, yet. I figured I'd settle that once this is over.”

Smith nods. That's more the answer he was expecting.

But whatever the reason, his hands are still untied.

-

After what feels like months they start running out of places to go. Etherill was right when he said most of the camps had probably disbanded, and most of them are have nothing left in them.

Still, Orem takes every ruined book and scrap of paper and spends an inordinate amount of time poring over them, translating them.

He finds a few things- men possessed by some lunar creature that end up going mad, men who gain power from praying to the lunar gods. But none of it seems quite to match up to Smith's case.

But as they clear out those last few places and Orem gets a little more information he starts to get suspicious. There _is_ something similar, but it seems ridiculous and impossible even from he point of view of the  _cultists_ . He needs more information but before long there's none left to have.

They've cleared out every location Etherill gave them, every location they've found on their own. There's no trace of the cultists left to find, and though there are still plenty of monsters about, the monkey-lizards don't tell them much of anything.

Which means they have to find other sources, and they don't really know when to start. None of them know the area well enough to know if they're even still in Diamond-throne. They find a village that's a decent size, and doesn't seem to have been destroyed _too_ badly by the lunar event.

They rent out a room in the inn but Orem doesn't even stay to go in, he leaves, saying he's going to scout out for more information, and Torq goes with him.

Smith, however, takes the opportunity to rest.

He doesn't know how long he sleeps. The usual dreams are also plagued by something else. The thing that starts him awake this time is a dream of wolves, a pack thousands strong. The alpha has two snouts and when it looks at him he feels that pressure- the wolves hadn't scared him but that force had and he wakes clutching his chest.

It was a dream. It was a dream and there's no pressure there now that he's awake but that doesn't stop his heart from beating faster than he knew was possible. He tries very, very hard not to puke again.

When they come back they find Smith like that, sprawled out on the bed with a hand on his chest.

Orem tiredly says, “James”

He struggles to sit up- it takes him a few tries. It seems that now he's getting dizzy spells on top of everything else.

He doesn't want to give away how shaky his voice is, so he makes a noise like _'hm?”_

Orem hesitates for a moment, trying to decide how to phrase what he says next.

He says, “How... how much did you know about Randus's family?”

For some reason Smith's heart is in his throat. Why is Orem asking him _that?_

“Not... not much. Why?”

Orem looks incredibly uncomfortable.

“Well, when I was looking for more information I heard that apparently there's a group of merchants in town that have been talking about hunting lunar monsters. I figured that joining up with them would give us a better shot at finding things out, but...”

“...but?”

He doesn't like where this is going.

“But the group is called Duthane Enterprises”

Oh. _Oh._

Orem continues, “And I suppose they might not even be related, but assuming they are...”

Smith nods, miserable. He says, “I need to tell them”

-

The caravan is a little ways out of town, by the time they get there the sun has started to set and fires are starting to be lit.

Someone- he seems a little young to be a guard but he's standing there with his chest thrust out says, “Halt!” as they approach.

They stop, and the kid looks them up and down.

“You guys here to sign up as caravan guards?”

Orem says, “Something like that. Could we maybe talk to the people in charge?”

“Sure, but,” he points at Orem, “you're kinda scrawny. Don't go in hoping for much”

He leads them to the central tent, ignoring Orem's glare.

“You'll recognize the guy in charge. He's the big one”

Inside there's sort of a mess hall and there's not many other people. There's a man nearly as tall as the tent who is unmistakeably the one in charge.

And, unmistakeably, has the same jawline and build that Randus did. He sees them and walks over, saying “How can I help you?”

Smith is already shaking.

Orem looks glances back at Smith for a moment before he says, ,”You're mister Duthane, correct?”

He nods.

“We... we have some news for you”

For Smith it feels like time freezes as Orem and Torq look back at him. As Randus's fatherfollows their gaze. He feels like he can't breathe.

He bows his head, sounding strangled, “I killed your son. I killed Randus”

The whole tent seems to go quiet. Smith wants so badly to apologize, over and over. But he can't. He can't find it in him to do anything other than shiver and wait for their judgment.

The older man's face goes from blank to confused. He looks over at a woman- she's short, with curly hair, who nods back and hustles out of the room.

He says, “Is this some kind of joke?”

He sounds far more confused than angry.

Smith shakes his head without looking up.

He's waiting. For the anger, or the grief. For him to say _something_.

But the silence goes on longer, and longer.

And then, from the side the woman comes back, leading someone in, saying, “-killed you? I don't recognize them but if you know them-”

He hears a very familiar voice say, “O-oh”

Smith, very slowly, looks up.

His coat is red, now, and tattered at the edges. The arm is different- a silver metal with etchings that hurt his eyes to look at and he, overall looks thinner and more tired.

The man standing there with his mother holding onto his arm by the crook of the elbow is the most exhausted Randus they've ever seen.

He is also the most living Randus they've seen.

Randus looks them over and says to them, “This- this is good. Now that you're here I guess it saves me the trouble of finding you”

Torq is the one to find his words first.

“You was dead” he says, and Orem adds on, “We had a funeral”

Randus nods, “I- I was. Yes.”

His mother looks shocked by this.

Smith's insides feel frozen in place as Randus explains.

His voice sounds shakier than he remembers.

“I _was_ dead, yes. And then I got brought back by -ah- do you remember The Monarch in Saffron Rags?”

Smith can't move, but Orem nods, almost imperceptibly.

“Right, right” Randus goes on, “The Melody Alkaline is one of its ah... avatars. They brought me back to- oh wait. Smith.”

He shakes his as as if to right his thoughts, “Maybe I should tell you this first, but the whole wolf thing? That... well that is because you have a god in you. We've met him, actually. The Thing the Shatters the Sky? And well... that's why I was brought back. The other lunar gods have kind of uh... charged me with finding it again and getting it out.”

Randus's parents look as shocked as the party feels, but he keeps going.

 

“A-anyways I've been trying to figure out how to get it out without getting everyone killed. I think I'm almost there but I needed some energy readings that I couldn't get without you here, so”, he scratches his head, “This is good”

 

Through all of this Smith feels a building mixture of horror and relief. He's not dead. _He's not dead._ _Which means it can happen again._

What he  _wants_ to do is fall to his knees and cry and apologize a million times, right there.

What he  _does_ is strain himself to speak. What he does is say, “I think you ought to tie me up”

 


	4. Chapter 4

This time they find a metal cable- borrowed from the Duthanes- and tie his arms tight from elbow to just below the shoulder.

Smith wishes they could do more, but short of breaking his arms there’s really not more that can be done.

The pressure is back with a vengeance , now, and that on top of his sickness and his grief and everything else leave Smith feeling worse than ever. He winds up, knees in the dirt, outside of Randus’s tent.

He and Orem are in there working, he knows. And Torq is out here with him- with a hand on his back to make sure he doesn’t do anything.

He hasn’t even been able to work up the courage to speak to him again.

They do, as far as Randus’s parents are concerned, sign on as caravan guards. It saves them  _that_ explanation, at least.

It’s a good hour before the two come back outside. Orem looks paler than usual and Randus certainly doesn’t look any better for wear.

He looks down at Smith like he’s surprised and says, “Y-You don’t have to sit there you know. I probably wont actually be ready until tomorrow…”

Smith can’t look him in the eye. It seems like it’s impossible to move at all, but he tries. He tries. Tied up, sitting in the dirt, so he can’t hurt Randus again, he finally starts to speak.

He says “Randus-” but his voice breaks after even that much. His throat is so tight that it hurts to try again, but he does, he says, “Randus, I’m sorry”

And then he says it, over and over and over until his breathing is too harsh to keep going and Randus is kneeling by him saying, “Do- don’t, Smith hey-”

He finally looks up at Randus, looks him in the eye, and if his voice wasn’t so hoarse he’d almost be yelling, “Randus I  _killed you.”_

Randus looks like he’s hearing it for the first time. He says, “Oh.”

And then, quietly, “I haven’t even thought about that since it happened to be honest. I…I’ve been a bit preoccupied and- Smith look-”

He puts a hand on Smith’s shoulder and even  _that_  feels like a huge risk.

“I don’t blame you for it. I-I mean it’s been made _very_  clear to me that what killed me was The Thing that Shattered the Sky and not you. And I’m going to get It out of you, alright? No one’s going to have to suffer because of It anymore.”

He smiles. Randus, the man he killed _, smiles and forgives him._

Smith sobs. He had thought he was out of tears long ago but this brings them back fresh. Even with Randus  _there_  trying to calm him down it takes a while for him to get composed enough to be walked back to their tent. He’s lightheaded and nauseous again, but somehow more cheerful than he’s been in weeks once it’s through.

-

It’s very difficult to get to sleep with steel cables around his arms, so Smith ends up lying awake into the early hours of the morning.

The longer he lies there, the more something starts to feel wrong. There’s the pressure, yes, and Smith also finds himself getting dizzy, though he hasn’t moved. It feels like he’s freezing and like his tongue is too big for his mouth and it as the night goes on it seems like everything that could be going wrong _is._  His joints ache and he tries to sit up but the world seems to buckle beneath him.

And he can’t talk, he can’t move- he can’t even  _try_  to wake anyone up.

He lies there for what feels like forever just shivering and struggling to breath.

Eventually he supposes that he’s made enough noise to attract Orem’s attention, because sooner or later someone finds him like that and puts a cool cloth on his head and someone’s talking but he’s not up to the effort it takes to understand the words.

It hurts.  _It hurts._

(It hurts like there’s a lunar god in him trying to rip itself free before its enemies do)

It hurts like that into the morning, into the afternoon, when Orem is back and saying, “James, Randus is ready to do what he needs. Can you walk?”

Smith tries to nod, tries to say  _anything,_  but only manages a pathetic whine.

So he ends up being led into Randus’s tent while being held up by Torq, and once they’re in he’s back on his knees- and hardly managing that.

The tent is dim, every surface and a surprising amount of canvas walls are covered with plans and blueprints that look more like the scribbling of a madman than something Randus would come up with. Randus replies to some look Torq apparently gave him saying, “I know it- it all looks very confusing. I’ve had, ah, a lot of  _outside_  help with all this”

Then Randus scans him over with some strange machine, very carefully takes a blood sample, and then he’s off in the corner writing down calculations and tinkering with something else.

Smith doesn’t look at him. It’s not guilt, this time, but the fact that he doesn’t have the strength to open his eyelids. It’s hard for him to understand, but Randus is talking, saying, “-readings were what I expected, so it should be done soon. Probably by tomorrow if I work through the night”

Smith wants to say, no,don’t, to get some rest. But he  _can’t_  and he’s not so sure if he’ll make it much longer than the night, anyways.

Randus then gets engrossed in his work, and Torq bodily carries Smith out of the tent.

As uncomfortable as he is Smith finally finds himself falling asleep as soon as he’s lying down again from pure exhaustion.

He dreams of blood and wolves and breaking necks.

-

He doesn’t wake up until he’s being carried again, far away from the town and from the caravan, to a rocky field where Randus has set up his machine.

He says that he needs to hook up a lot of his machinery onto Smith’s chest. And so someone lies him down and takes the metal cord off of him but rebinds his hands. Someone takes his shirt.

He doesn’t move through all of this, afraid that the pressure in his chest will go free if he does.

And then there are cold hands – and cold metal -on his chest and Randus is saying, “I tried as hard as I could but this is still going to hurt. I couldn’t say how much, but, I’m sorry in advance.

Smith wants to say that it’s fine, that it’ll be worth it, that  _anything_ would be worth it to get this thing out of him.

He forces all his energy into nodding, just once.

Then he hears, “Ready?”

“Ready”

First he hears a loud buzzing, and then…

Pain. Starting in his chest and shooting through the rest of him light lighting. Worse than anything The Thing had inflicted on him, worse than anything he can remember. It makes him more breathless than any pressure had, wipes out all other sensation.

But it’s a pain that seems to wipe the slate clean, a pain that burns out the pressure in his chest and the pounding in his head. That forces something  _else_ out of him.

When it finally starts to fade, it fades slowly. First the buzzing stops and then, starting from his fingers, the pain is replaced by numbness. It fades out and in come sounds,too loud, of fighting and howling. There’s another pressure now, on the outside, like what happens before a thunderstorm.

He’s still exhausted, even more so, now, but he lies there and tries, very hard, to open his eyes.

There are scars on his chest, in strange concentric circles, that look decidedly lunar. And in front of him,  _out_ of him, is a huge wolf monster with two that’s raging against the other three.

(He’s too weak, too tired and too tied up to try and stand and help, but this Thing is weaker here than it would be on the moon and the Monarch seems to have an interest in helping defeat it, too)

The fight seems to last forever from Smith’s vantage point on the ground. The air tastes acrid from all the magic, in it, and the colors seem painfully bright. He watches Torq take blow after blow from the Thing, watch them throw in everything they have.

Then, in a spit second, The Thing howls and curses and looks like it shreds itself into a thousands bits of paper before it dissapears.

And for a long moment after they stay tense. The pressure lessens, but it’s not gone.

Then, in the very back of their heads they all hear a chuckle, a,  _well done,_  and it feels like the storm has passed and last of the pressure is gone.

It’s over.

Randus slumps over, puts his hand on his knees.

He says, “The Thing  _and_ The Monarch is gone. It’s done.”

And Orem, out of breath, replies, ‘Is it? Really?”

Randus shakes his head, “They’re a lunar gods. They’re as likely to kill me for helping as to leave me alone forever”

Then, all together, they make their way over to where Smith is laying. Torq comes behind him and helps him sit up, and Orem reaches down and starts untying his binds.

They all look ragged. Smith is more tired than he could ever imagine and Randus looks ready to sleep right now.

But.

It’s done. It’s over and done and somehow at the end of it they’re all alive, even if one of them wasn’t, before.

Randus smiles and asks, “Are you feeling alright?”

Smith makes his best attempt to smile and nod back.

For the first time since he’s met them, he’s alright.


	5. Something Completely Different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The same story, from Randus's Side.

Boy does his neck  _hurt._

At first he thinks it’s because he slept on it wrong- it’s not unusual for him to fall asleep with his head on his desk and to wake up with a crick in his neck- it’s a little more unusual for him to wake up on the floor, but it’s happened before.

Waking up aching in a place he’s never been before isn’t even new- just the other day he’d woken up in Resplendent Tiger’s temple- but this, wherever he is, is different, and new. And  _boy_ does his neck ache.

What happened? Where is he?

And where is his arm?

So Randus opens his eyes, shivers a bit when he realizes that he can see his own breath and that he’s freezing. Before he can sit up, he hears,“Awaken.”

It’s the kind of voice the he hears more in his head than his ears. It’s a voice that’s quiet and lilting and despite how nice it’s sounds, it still brings a sour taste to his mouth.

It’s the voice of the Melody Alkaline.

He knows it. He’d heard it before not too long ago, and though he couldn’t really hear what it was saying, he knew that it was trying to communicate with him. But now that he’s here, wherever here is, the voice is much more clear, and that much more terrifying.

He sits up, looks around. There is no one but himself- alone on the floor of some temple, and a bodiless voice that says, “ Rise. You have work to do.”

There’s this worrying tone in that voice that tells him he really should listen. So he stands- tries to stand, because for some reason his joints, his real ones- don’t want to work, like they haven’t been moved in too long.

He stands after a few tries, shivers, and waits, feeling like his heart is in the bottom of his stomach.

The temple is open to the outside- he can see the lunar landscape out there- and the room itself is wide and empty.

When the voice comes again at first he thinks it’s echoing, until he remembers that the voice isn’t a sound at all, that it can’t echo, meaning that there’s more than one thing talking to him.

“You. You who have been slain by our Sky Shattering brother. We have brought you back because you must slay him in turn. We are the Monarch in Saffron Rags, and you are now Our Subject.”

It takes him a moment to process it.  _You_ would be him, Randus. And he had been… He had been killed.  _Right._ Ok.

But not by who he was being told. His breathing is shaky, but it’s not as though he has anything to loose, “I… wasn’t killed by the Thing who Shatters the Sky, I-”

It’s hard to count how many voices there are, now “Oh. Yes. He hides within that boy like a shadow hiding from the light, controls him like a fungus does a bug. You will have to find him to find Our Thing. And kill him, to kill Our Thing.”

“B-but,” he stumbles over his own words, “It’s a god. I don’t think I’ll be able to-”

He flinches back at the sudden screeching in his head. They’re so  _loud._

“You have proven more than once now that you are more than capable of disrupting the plans of gods. You are our Subject. You will do it again.”

“And besides” The Melody Alkaline adds, alone, and back to being quiet, “You will have our aid in rooting out our greatest enemy. Now  _go_.”

 _That_ is a command he can follow. He stumbles to the front of the temple, down the stairs to a pavilion ringed by temples much the same.

It’s lonely and cold and windy, and there at the bottom of the steps is some bundle of things with a note on top that says- ‘to you’.

And Randus knows it’s to  _him_  because on top is an arm-much different from his old one. It’s made out of that metal Smith had dubbed mooninite. It’s bigger and bulkier and when he hefts it, it’s much heavier than his old one. And perhaps most worrying of all are the etchings in it. They’re raw, like they were done haphazardly with acid and he finds it impossible to trace one spiral all the way through. It is, all in all, very lunar.

He would honestly prefer to go without an arm than to wear this one, but he hears, again in a thousand voices, “That is our  **gift** to you. And you will accept it.”

It fits right over his old connectors like a charm. Unfortunately.

That besides there’s new armor- a coat that’s color can really only be described as saffron-and a load of alchemical ingredients he’s never seen before.

The voices seem to be coming from his new arm  _and_ the temple behind him now, ”Our Sky Shatterer intends to hide back in your world. We will not allow it. You will seek him out there. Find him in his prison and slay him.”

And then the world in front of him bends and melts and warps all at once.

-

This time when he wakes up it’s with all of his bones hurting like they’ve been torn out and put back in the wrong way around.

He’s not dead again, at least, and as the ache starts to fade he finally has time to process it all.

First he makes sure it wasn’t a dream. Simple- a dream would hurt that much and he still has the new arm and armor.

The most pressing thing is that he’s now, apparently, working for another lunar god.  _Another_  lunar god because Smith had one _in_ him. At least that kind of explains the magic.

And a few other things. It was no wonder Smith had been so panicked that night. When Randus had first talked to the Melody Alkaline he hadn’t been able to understand what it wanted. But something else had.

The Thing that Shattered the Sky must have realized it had been found. And it must have controlled Smith somehow to stop him from doing anything about it.

Stop him by…killing him. Right. That had still happened.

And it raises even more questions. How often and how much was The Thing able to control Smith? Was he even aware of what was in him?

He shudders and then winces from the pain of the movement when he hears, “Go, mortal. You have work to do.”

And had it been like this for him the whole time? With voices always telling him to do things and putting a sour taste in his mouth?

Well it’s no wonder Smith didn’t like talking about it.

Randus sighs and slowly begins to sit up. He doesn’t have the first clue where he is. It’s too dark to see much of anything but the vague outline of trees would suggest a forest, somewhere. It takes him a while but he stands up and brushes off the leaves. He mumbles to himself, “But what now?”

And gets a response, quietly, in the back of his head,“You seek. You find. You kill.”

The voices almost seem to be coming from his arm. He’s not sure how he can even tell. Great.

Randus sighs again and looks up to the sky. At least the moon is back where it’s supposed to be.

He wanders through the forest, completely aimless. He doesn’t know where to start looking for Smith, doesn’t particularly want to try because of what he’d have to do if he managed to  _find_ him.

–

He gets out of the forest after a few days. There don’t seem to be many lunar monsters around- in fact they seem to be  _avoiding_ him.Ann interesting positive to all of this.

Less positive is what happens when he sleeps. Or tries to sleep. The voice- voices- flood in, tell him to stop wasting time. They get worse when he tries to ignore them, and on the second night when he gets exhausted enough to fall asleep despite them?

He wishes he hadn’t. He wakes up in a cold sweat and he can’t even remember what the dreams were _about._

It’s a miserable time.

No matter where he goes he’s  _wrong,_ he’s  _wasting time_. Because he doesn’t know where to go. To top it off is his new arm; it’s so much heavier than his old one, it makes his back ache all the time from the weight of it. And he’s not allowed to take it off- it’s what’s letting the gods have such a strong connection to him, he figures. When he tries the metal grows cold, cold enough to be dangerous and he can’t ever get it off.

Eventually he finds a road, and after walking down it for a while he finds a village. It’s abandoned but there’s enough there for him to find it on a map.

So he learns where he is. He still has no idea where he’s  _going._

He can’t do much else besides wander. He goes south, towards where the Exilarchy was. Towards where the rest of them might be, if they’re anywhere.

He doesn’t want to find them, but he has nowhere else to go. And he can’t sleep. He only manages to doze off once a week and all of his waking hours are filled with whispering in the back of his head.

More and more he finds himself wishing that he’d stayed dead.

Finally he comes to another village. He considers getting a room at the inn, for all the good it would do him. Considers maybe stopping there, ignoring the lunar gods until they drive him mad, or maybe kill him again.

But something changes there. He goes to the inn, gets the room and tries to ignore the concerned glances of everyone who passes him on the street.

He all but collapses on the bed, and a voice he now knows well breaks through the whispers. It does not tell him to keep going, like he expects. It says, “We have found him, lucky for you. Stay. Prepare. We will bring him to you.”

He almost smiles at that. It’s not good, he doesn’t want them to find him. But it means no more wandering.

It means he finally gets to fall asleep and stay that way for more than a few hours. So he does.

-

His third day there a caravan pulls in to town to trade. Ordinarily he wouldn’t go out to see them- he still wants to sleep- but he sees the top of a wagon out of his window and it looks oddly familiar- dented in all the right places.

Well it couldn’t hurt to check it out.

So he stumbles out of his room and down the stairs. And he’s pleased to notice that though he is still getting glances it’s not near as many.

And then he turns the corner to see the side of the wagon.

And yes, on the side is painted on, just how he remembers, ‘Duthane Enterprises’.

He’s not sure if he’s nervous or relieved that he’s right, but he walks to the center of it all all the same.

His mom spots him before he does, bustles on over to him and wraps him in a big hug saying, “Oooh honey! I didn’t know you were around here! How’ve you been?”

She looks him over and frowns and pinches his sides in the way he knows means she doesn’t think he’s been eating enough as he sort of breathlessly chuckles and says, “I’ve been alright. Been keeping busy.”

He gets dragged into the mess tent and given the best soup he’s had probably since he left home and he tells them the very basics of what he’s been up to. Mostly about the Exilarchy. She nods along. And then she asks the question, “Well now that you’re all done with that how about coming along with the family again?”

She purses her lips, “Until you find another adventure to go on, of course.”

Randus bows his head and grimaces a bit, “To be honest I was planning on staying in town for a while. I … I kind of need a rest from it all.”

Not technically a lie.

And his mother nods , “That’s fine dear. To be honest we’re probably going to be staying a while ourselves.”

She leans in conspiratorially, “We were thinking about changing businesses, you know.”

He finds out how there’s apparently big money to be made hunting lunar monsters. And that they have an extra tent for him, if he wants it. His mother tells him he can decide if he’s going with them when they leave.

-

The whispers grow quiet but they never quite go away.

But now he’s more rested and more cheerful than he’s been since the start of all this; now he gets an idea.

Maybe he doesn’t have to kill Smith. Maybe the Thing is the only one that will have to die.

He starts working.

It’s tough, trying to build a machine that can get a god out of somebody. Again, he doesn’t know where to start.

(But when its comes to machines hes used to that. He doesn’t know where to start but he drafts a few ideas anyways)

This time he gets help. This time when he’s drawing up his plants the voices all speak together, “What are you preparing against our Brother?”

It’s hard for him not to jump when he hears is. His voice is high with nervousness.

“Well,” he mumbles to his own shoulder, “Well I wasn’t sure if killing Smith would kill the Thing. I mean we… need to get out of him first, right? Or else it might just try to hide in somebody else…”

He trails off. That’s the best explanation he has that doesn’t put him in defiance of them.

So he sighs in relief when he hears the choir say, “Very well. Give him freedom from his prison. Destroy him while he revels in it.”

And he finds,from then on, that if he listens close to the whispers they give him hints on what to build.

-

As Smith gets closer the whipers get louder.

The machine not progressing as fast as They want it to.

If it were as simple as ripping The Thing free and leaving Smith to die it would have been done long ago, but he doesn’t want that. He tries as hard as he can to subvert them.

They say they told him to prepare, and that he is not prepared. He feels like he’s going mad all over again because they’re not letting him sleep, again. It’s constant work on this thing, round the clock.

His parents are worried, he knows. He knows they see him up all night and his mother tells him he’s still not eating enough. He tries as hard as he can to pass it off as another one of his inventions. He’s done this before. He just can’t explain what his machine is for this time.

The days all get jumbled up together. He just spends long hours hunched over wiring, back aching. He’s so tired- he’s worked himself to the bone and his mind is a jumble of nonsensical equations. Sometimes when he talks he stumbles over his words- says something a whispering voice just said to him. He can’t tune them out. All the time now it’s the words of lunar gods in his head.

He has to remind himself sometimes, who he’s doing this for. For Smith, who had a god in him, not just in his head. Who probably went through something a lot like this.

He’s afraid that if he doesn’t get this right he’ll kill Smith like Smith killed him.

-

Then, somehow, the machine is done. Or as close to done as it can get without that last bit. To calibrate it properly, to get it to work  _without_ killing him he needs to get the machine attuned to that energy. But he can’t do that without Smith here.

Somehow he’s not surprised when the very next day his mother opens the flap to his tent and sighs. She says, “There’s some people here who want to see you, I think.”

She hooks his elbow with her hands and walks him to the mess tent. She says, “They all look a little ragged. And one of them said that he killed you?I don’t recognize them but if you know them-”

  
  


She brings him in and there is exactly what he expected.

He says,“This is good. Now that you’re here I guess it saves me the trouble of finding you.”

He knows he didn’t have to find them. He suspects, and the whispers confirm, that as the three of them wiped out the remaining moon cultists, everything they found led them here on  _purpose_.

Torq stands up straighter and grunts,“You was dead.”

Orem nods adds on, “We had a funeral.”

Randus nods, “I- I was dead. Yes.”

He had somehow almost forgotten. It’s no wonder they look so shocked to see him.

His mother says, “W _hat.”_

“I  _was_  dead. And then I got brought back by, ah, do you remember The Monarch in Saffron Rags?”

Orem nods, no one else even moves.

“The Melody Alkaline- the one I talked to before- is one of its ah… avatars. They brought me back to-”

He’s getting ahead of himself. He’s so tired it’s hard to focus, “Wait. Smith- Maybe I should tell you this first, but the whole wolf thing? That… well _that_  is because you have a god in you. We’ve met him, actually. The Thing the Shatters the Sky? And, well, that’s why  _I_ was brought back. The other lunar gods want me to…get it out of you, so to speak.”

It all comes tumbling out,  _he_ doesn’t really understand most of it.

“Anyways, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get it out of you  _without_  getting everyone killed. I think I’m almost there but I needed some energy readings that I couldn’t get without you here, so…This is good.”

For a long time it’s quiet- the look he’s getting is something like horror. And then Smith looks up- his voice sounds quiet and broken and when he speaks he takes a step back from Randus like hes carrying a disease.

Smith says “I think you ought to tie me up.”

Based on that reaction he’d say that he’s still having problems with the Thing.

Torq goes with him and ties him up with a metal cable. Randus says to his mother, “I’ll explain later,” and heads back to his tent.

Orem follows him and waits by the entrance.

He says, “I don’t know what to say about all this.”

Randus says, “Er.”

Orem sighs, but there’s a smile at the corner of his lips, “Whatever the circumstances, its good to have you back.”

“Once I’m done with this I think the circumstances will be a lot better.”

Orem tries to help him with the machine. Randus tries to ignore the whispers.

“Is…..everything alright? With Smith, I mean.”

Orem sighs, frowns, “Let’s just say that he’s taken your death  _very_  harshly. He’s been very hard on the, ah, murderer. And he’s gotten sick a lot, too.”

That’s a way to phrase it.

He sighs again, “He hasn’t been very open about what happened. You think that there’s a god in him? That made him kill you?”

“I’ve been explicitly told as such. And I think once I get it out of him, a lot of suffering will stop. For both of us.”

Orem goes quiet. He’s looking at his tent, at the walls of it that are covered with sketches and diagrams that look quite a lot like what’s in the book Orem has.

Then he says, “What about you? Are you alright?”

And Randus replies, “Not really. But hopefully when this is all done, I will be.”

That’s what’s kept him going this long. The hope that once this is all over there wont be any voices and _no one_ will be dead.

The best way to figure out the energy is probably from the blood, he’s figured. Less chance of interference with other things there-

“Hm?” says Orem, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

He hadn’t even realized he had been mumbling, “N…no. Nothing. Nevermind. Where is Smith?”

“Outside, I think.”

Right outside, actually. Smith is right outside of his tent, on his knees, head lowered and bound with that cable around his chest.

Torq is with him, too.

Did he ask for them to bring smith out here? He can’t remember. His memory fails him a lot these days.

“You don’t have to sit there you know. I probably wont actually be ready until tomorrow…”

But then Smith looks up with tears in his eyes “ Randus-” his voice breaks, “Randus, I’m sorry.”

And then he says it, over and over again until his breathing is too harsh to keep going and Randus is kneeling beside him,trying to calm him down.

His voice is hoarse, “Randus, I  _killed you.”_

Randus says says, “Oh.”

Right. That again.

“I haven’t even thought about that since it happened to be honest. I…I’ve been a bit preoccupied and- Smith look-”

He puts a hand on Smith’s shoulder and Smith flinches away from it. He looks at Randus like hes _scared._

“I don’t blame you for it. I  _know_ that what killed me was The Thing that Shattered the Sky and not you. And I’m going to get It out of you, alright? No one’s going to have to suffer because of It anymore.”

Smith sobs and sobs hard right into shoulder and Rands rubs his back and lets him.

So that had been what Orem meant. Hard on his murderer meant hard on himself. He blamed himself this whole time and not the god inside him. And he wonders, again if this whole time what he’s been going is what it’s been like for Smith. If Smith had any idea what was in him. About how much Smith didn’t tell them out of fear of looking like he was going to betray them?

He’s tired. They both are.

Eventually Smith calms down and they bring him to the tent where the caravan guards stay. And Randus goes back to work. He’s so _close._

He works through the night, as always- it’s hard to stay focused, the whispers have risen to a chatter now that he’s  _here._

Before he realizes it it’s almost sunrise and Orem is in his tent saying, “Somethings gone wrong with Smith. He’s sick, I think. It’s bad.”

He might have known that. He’s sure he heard a whisper about the Thing trying to kill it’s host, before he could.

“Then we’ll have to make it quick. Get someone to bring him here.”

Smith is carried into his tent by again, and put down on his knees where he leans very heavily on Torq.

Smith doesn’t even move when he takes a blood sample, but even from that little touch he can feel just how high his temperature is. There’s no time to waste.

,He feeds the samples into the machine and it starts feeding out numbers. He starts adjusting for the readings right away.

He’s  _so close._

Orem steps up to him and says, “Was that what you needed?”

He nods. “The readings were pretty close what I expected, so it should be done soon. Probably by tomorrow if I work through the night.”

And he does, although no one looks pleased by it. Orem stays with him and offers what little help he can, but the stuff Randus has calculated is far outclasses what Orem has learned from his book.

But by sunrise it’s as finished as it’s going to get, so he gets Torq to help him carry it, far away from the town and from the caravan, to a rocky field where if things go bad maybe they wont get anyone else killed.

And then Torq finds Smith and brings him there, too.

Yeah. He looks bad. He hardly looks like he’s breathing. It’s now or never. For both of them.

He kneels by Smith, walks him though, what hes doing, that hes going to have to hook up a lot of machinery onto his chest and tries his best to explain what it’s going to do, although he’s not even to sure of that, anymore.

He says, “I tried as hard as I could but this is still going to hurt. I couldn’t say how much, but, I’m sorry in advance.”

It will almost certainly be the most painful thing anyone could hope to live though. Smith scrunches up his face from the pain and the effort of it, but he nods.

Then Randus steps back, looks at Orem and Torq and says, “Ready?”

They say,“Ready”

He flips the switch. At first the machine buzzes, louder and louder until it drowns out even the whispers, and then all at once there’s a bright flash and there is the Thing he’s been looking for. . Two snouts and spider legs and fury and rage coming right at them.

The battle is long, long, so long. But somehow he knows, he knows what it can do and he knows it’s weak spots and he’s able to shout to the others what to do. They throw in everything they have. Torq takes hit after hit and then it changes to a skull and _then_  in a split second the Thing howl and curses and shreds itself into tiny bits.

It disappears, dies, flees. He doesn’t know.

Then they hear, they  _all_ hear, the choir of voices. They hear, “Well done.”

Randus slumps over, puts his hand on his knees.

He listens.

Nothing. No whispering.

He says, “They’re gone. It’s done.”

And Orem, out of breath, replies, “Is it? Really?”

Randus shakes his head, “They’re lunar gods. They’re as likely to kill me for helping as to leave me alone forever. I just hope its the latter.”

He takes a deep breath and then straightens back up. All three of them help him sit up, Torq starts taking off the cable.

He’s still breathing, still alive. He opens his eyes.

Randus smiles and asks, “Are you feeling alright?”

And Smith smiles, nods back.

They’re gone, its over and it’s over. Somehow they all lived. Somehow, they didn’t break him.

They walk back to camp. He leaves his machine in that field, hopefully forgotten.

They go to rest.

Randus goes to his tent, sits down.

He removes his prosthetic arm. There’s no protest, to threat of frostbite. It’s a weight of his back  _and_ his mind.

He throws it onto the table, to take apart later.

And then he lays down and , finally, he sleeps. 


End file.
